Most Batemans Bay residents feel we are being ripped off at the petrol pump, and Surf Beach’s Lynda Gilfeather is one such resident who put her outrage into writing.
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She wrote a letter to Coles Express leaving no grey areas as to how she felt about it, but didn’t appreciate the response.
“It was just rubbish; a non-answer,” she said.
“I think we are being done over and they are doing it because they can.”
Mrs Gilfeather drives to Sydney and back at least once a month, and the price discrepancy was something she couldn’t ignore.
“I was filling up before I left Batemans Bay and I noticed it was consistently 17 cents a litre more expensive,” she said.
“I know cartage costs money, but it cannot cost that much more to the point that it is 17 cents a litre more, especially when Narooma petrol is cheaper.
“I was in feisty mode so I asked at the checkout at the service station and was given the online address for a form I could fill out and send to them.”
The reply included the following: “fuel prices are largely determined by factors outside the control of fuel retailers. Factors include the oil price, exchange rates, refiner’s margins, government taxes, site volumes and product supply and demand.”
“The movement of pump prices is the result of these factors combined with fuel retailers responding to the local competition.”
“These factors and others need to be considered when looking at the price of fuel.”
Mrs Gilfeather said she was so disgusted she “did not honour the letter with a response.”
Related coverage: Hairy eye on fuel
